So you’re all excited… you just installed Outlook 2007 and you think it’s great… until your friends start forwarding you all those funny e-mails we all love to receive, but you can’t see the animation in animated GIF images.

This is not a bug in Outlook 2007, but rather a feature (that I am sure most will find rather frustrating).

As per Microsoft:

Other Unsupported Web-Related Features
The following is a list of all other Web-related features that Word 2007 does not support:

  • Animated GIF images. Only a static representation of the GIF image shows.
  • Flash. Only a red “X” shows in the area where the flash would display.

For full details please see:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx

Currently there is no known quick solution for this, but one workaround is to save the e-mail message somewhere on your hard drive and then open it using your favourite browser.

Here’s how you do it:

  • Select the message, don’t open it
  • Click file, save
  • It should be in htm / html format by default
  • Browse to a folder where you can open the mail from (I always use my desktop)
  • Double click the file on the desktop and voila your message displays in your default browser (typically Internet Explorer) and you can see all the animations.
  • Once your done reading (and hopefully laughing), close Internet Explorer
  • Rember to delete the file and folder created by saving the message – you don’t want to waste disc space or clutter your desktop

Tags:

Categories: Information Technology


10 Responses to “Outlook 2007 – animated GIF (not animated any more)”

  1. BassKozz says:

    Here is another work around found here: http://www.tutorials-win.com/OutlookGen/Animated-Gifs-550878/

    Steps:
    1. Double click the message in Outlook 2007 to open it in its own
    Window.
    2. On the “Message” toolbar, in the 2nd section, there is an “Other
    Actions” button.
    3. In the “Other Actions” drop-down menu, select “View in Browser”.

    Screen shot: http://www.b-o-b.org/outlook2007.jpg

    • Saravanan Srinivasan says:

      Is the animated images can be viewed with 2007 outlook instead of follow the above mentioned steps

  2. Thanks BassKozz – that is definately a much easier way that my method!

  3. profugo says:

    Thanks BassKozz, very useful and clever trick! U save me from going crazy…LOL

  4. 3DeeNut says:

    Wow, yet another reason to abandon all things Microsoft. Can they build any software that actually works? Sigh…

    Windows = Unstable Crap
    Word = Overbloated Crap
    Powerpoint = Lets not even go there shall we?
    Outlook = Ok till the most recent update…
    Excell = Wow something that isn’t completely worthless!
    Project = Good but a million free other choices are better.
    Flight Simulator = Best thing microsoft ever made.

  5. keef00 says:

    3DeeNut, do you haunt random websites and post your totally unrelated rants about Microsoft? I suspect the majority of people come here looking for help. You aren’t offering any, so why not buzz off?

  6. jpal20002001 says:

    They should have an option that enables/disables this change. Is there an option that automatically views the email in a browser?

  7. Scrap5000 says:

    And what about copying from a site and pasting ti in the body of an outlook message that you are sending, like I used to alwasys do?

    That never works anymore, right?

    There is no way to make the animation work except as an attachment, and that really sucks!

  8. Linda says:

    Thank you Bass Kozz, really useful.
    It’s a shame that Microsoft did not give users the option rather than just removing the animation!

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